Revolution in Skin Cancer Detection

Early detection of skin cancer can save millions of lives, and an Israeli company has developed a device that could revolutionize accepted modes of diagnosis. Already the most common form of cancer in the United States, skin cancer is becoming even more widespread as sunlight exposure increases worldwide.

"Early detection is the key to battling the disease. With early detection, almost all forms of skin cancer are curable," says Yossi Biderman, CEO of Skin Cancer Scanning (SCS), an Israeli company that has developed a breakthrough technology using fiber-optic cables to scan for potentially malignant moles.

Clinical trials at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva in central Israel show the system to be 92 percent effective in detecting certain types of skin cancer at an early stage — a higher rate than that of any apparatus currently available. Now a marketable device called Skinscan 650 is close to being ready, Biderman stated. "We assume we will have a working prototype by mid-to-late 2011."

The unique technology is based on the observation that cancerous cells proliferate faster than healthy cells, and their accelerated metabolic activity releases energy at a higher frequency.

"The concept is simple to understand," says Biderman. "Every living organism emits energy in the form of heat. This energy comes out in wavelengths — i.e. the light spectrum. Every living organism is built of cells, and the wavelengths emit from these cells. Most healthy people have a body temperature of around 98.6 F, and any difference in temperature can be traced to a medical condition. There's nothing new in this.

"Cancer develops in cells as the result of something afflicting them that causes them to regenerate and split at a faster rate," he says. "This increased metabolic activity releases energy at a higher frequency, generating heat — just as the temperature around your pelvic area rises after eating. We're looking at the symptom. The cause cannot be detected so easily.

"There are two groups of skin cancer: Non-melanoma cancers account for 95 percent of skin cancers, and are known to be less fatal. Most deaths from skin cancer are caused by melanoma cancers. In both cases, early detection will ensure a high level of survival. If melanoma skin cancer has developed, your chances of coming out of it are about five percent. That is why early detection is so important," he adds.

In most developed countries, it is commonplace for a physician to visually examine suspicious moles before referring patients for biopsies that usually prove unnecessary and expensive. SCS's technology could make this practice a thing of the past.

Biderman points to the system's user-friendliness. "The doctor simply places the device next to the nevus (benign skin lesion) he wants to check. A light source projects rays onto the scanned lesion, and the body cells absorb part of the rays and reflect the light back — as do all things. That reflection is collected, then turned from optical into digital data for assessment. Our system knows how to absorb the rays emanating from the body and assess in which range of the spectrum the light's rays are coming out and their behavioral patterns."

Two stages of clinical trials have already proved the system's feasibility. "We compared our results using patients who had been referred for a biopsy after a doctor had eyeballed a lesion," Biderman recounts. "We already knew that cancer cells appear in different ranges of the spectrum, depending on the type of cancer, but in the first set of trials we still didn't know what we were looking at.

"Eventually, we started recognizing certain patterns. We learned to recognize what types of lesions are malignant. Now at least we had a name for every type. We found that each type of lesion has particular behavioral patterns. Every lesion has a different 'signature'-like fingerprint. We learned to diagnose the data using proprietary algorithms, and have come to recognize certain pulses as giving information on the type of cancer. At the end of the procedure, we compared our results with those of biopsies carried out on patients," he tells reporters.

The second stage of trials, completed in accordance with Declaration of Helsinki criteria, validated the technology's NMSC identification capabilities, resulting in a 92.4 percent sensitivity rate.

"You have to keep on checking," Biderman warns. "The chances of developing skin cancer increase as you grow older. If you're over 50 years old, it's recommended that a dermatologist check you at least once a year."

Early detection of skin cancer can save millions of lives, and an Israeli company has developed a device that could revolutionize accepted modes of diagnosis. Already the most common form of cancer in the United States, skin cancer is becoming even more widespread as sunlight exposure increases worl

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